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Dory Levine, of Squirrel Hill, a board member at Tree of Life, pauses for a moment on Nov. 14 as she helps to deconstruct and catalogue the memorials left for those killed in October at the synagogue in Squirrel Hill.
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For those overwhelmed by the Tree of Life massacre — there is help

Andrew Rush/Post-Gazette

For those overwhelmed by the Tree of Life massacre — there is help

Under normal circumstances, the traditional Jewish mourning period, “shloshim,” lasts 30 days following burial.

But there were no normal circumstances in the deaths of 11 Jewish worshippers in Squirrel Hill on Oct. 27. They were fatally shot inside the Tree of Life/Or L’Simcha synagogue while three congregations were observing morning Shabbat services.

None could be buried within 24 hours of their deaths, customary for those of the Jewish faith. Their funerals began Oct. 30 and ended Nov. 2.

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So shloshim (actually, the Hebrew word for the number 30) continues for those 11 souls. And for some, Jewish or not, so does fear, anxiety and shock at the massacre by a man spewing anti-Semitic invective in the synagogue building shared by the Tree of Life/Or L’Simcha, New Light and Dor Hadash congregations.

“My interest is to stop or reduce all acts of gun-related violence, including homicides, suicides, domestic violence and mass shootings,” said Pittsburgh City Council member Rev. Ricky Burgess, a sponsor of legislation that would allow the city to hire a gun violence prevention coordinator, on Tuesday. Here, he spoke during a candidate forum at the Homewood branch of the Carnegie Library in 2015.
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Like a rock thrown into a lake, trauma creates concentric circles of distress in its wake. People may feel shock, numbness, fear, anger, disillusionment, and grief. They may have trouble sleeping, concentrating, eating, and connecting with others.

These are common reactions to a traumatic event, but they should begin to dissipate in a month or so, roughly equal to shloshim.

The caring support of family and friends and even strangers from around the world has already helped many recover a sense of equilibrium, if not understanding. Professional help is advised if the negative emotions don’t go away and severely impact your life, becoming post-traumatic stress disorder.

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Pittsburgh was at the epicenter of the trauma universe for a time, but mass shootings in the United States since then have killed 54 more people as of Sunday and wounded or injured 76 others, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The website tracks incidents in which more than one person is killed, wounded or injured in a single incident.

“Our hearts pour out to those victims. We want them to feel the kind of support and love we felt,” said Jordan Golin, a clinical psychologist who is president and CEO of Jewish Family and Community Services in Squirrel Hill.

“Recovery doesn’t happen in days, or weeks or over the course of months and even years. We are in it for the long haul,” he said.

Day after day, people are feeling the burden of grief and also finding ways to help themselves and others.

Violinist Itzhak Perlman performs during the Concert for Peace and Unity with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra to honor the Tree of Life synagogue shooting victims, Nov. 27, 2018, in Downtown. (Alexandra Wimley/Post-Gazette)
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A day of healing

On an evening not quite three weeks after the massacre, Dory Levine was walking her dog Elsie in front of Tree of Life and reflecting on how she had found solace during the chilly day. 

Ms. Levine, a board member at Tree of Life/Or L’Simcha, was among the volunteers who that day had dismantled the spontaneous memorial at Shady and Wilkins avenues. It had grown daily with offerings of flowers, memorial candles, artwork, cards, stuffed animals, and signs decrying hate. There were wooden Star of David memorial markers, each one bearing the name of one of the 11 slain worshippers. And hundreds of oval stones, which under ancient Jewish custom are symbols of the lasting presence of the deceased’s life and memory.

The memorial was taken down to preserve it. Durable items will be preserved, and some displayed inside the glass doors to the Tree of Life main sanctuary, visible from Wilkins Avenue. Some materials also will be preserved in the Rauh Jewish History Program & Archives at the Senator John Heinz History Center in the Strip District.

“I felt a lot better, going through the stones, seeing all the flowers, seeing the teddy bears, making sure everything is preserved,” said Ms. Levine, who lives near the synagogue.

She had been having a difficult time, Ms. Levine said. She knew four of the victims.

She couldn’t sleep or eat; she didn’t exercise.

“I couldn’t really talk on the phone with people,” she said. “I was very depressed. I’ve never felt this. Nobody has ever felt something like this. Nobody can prepare you for anything like that.” 

When she first went into the synagogue earlier that day, she had struggled about whether to look at the places where the attacks occurred. She decided she needed to do so.

“It just seemed surreal. Even when I saw the bullet holes, I thought, ‘This is not my synagogue.’ That was really hard, and then I came out here, and then started to clean up and that helped me feel a little better,” she said.

“I went to five funerals, all the shivas. It takes a toll on you. Today was just a good way of finally feeling I could do something,” she said, referring visitations at mourners’ homes that follow up to seven days after burial.

Ms. Levine and her family were getting back to normal routines, she said, which helped.

What also provided salve was helping in the synagogue’s temporary office, opening some of the thousands of cards of condolence and support from the region and around the world.

“We feel like we’re part of a big giant family,” she said. “We’re just trying to move forward and we’re going to rebuild the synagogue and hopefully our congregation will be stronger than ever.”

‘We’ll get through this’

Jack Rozel was in Austin, Texas, for a conference of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law where he had co-taught a class about how psychiatrists can help identify people at risk of rampages. Dr. Rozel, medical director of re:Solve Crisis Services at UPMC, flew home immediately when he learned of the mass shooting in his own city. 

With coordination by the Allegheny County Human Services Department, resolve Crisis Services personnel joined counselors from JFCS, the Center for Victims, other agencies, and individual practitioners at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh in Squirrel Hill to help those in need.

“When it comes to emergency response and preparedness with behavioral health services of all varieties, we are extremely well-resourced as a county,” said Dr. Rozel, president-elect of the American Association for Emergency Psychiatry.

The healing process takes time, but “we’ll get through this,” he said. “Clinically, we talk about post-traumatic stress disorder, but there’s also post-traumatic growth and post-trauma transformation as people in the community and individuals say, ‘Never again. How do we move forward because of this?’”

Survivors vow to survive

Audrey Glickman and Joe Charny have mourned those who were killed, those injured and the anti-Semitism that defiled a sacred space. They felt regret that they could not help some of the fatally wounded in their final moments.

But the two survivors are defiant in their resolve not to let horror consume their lives.

For about 20 terrifying minutes of that awful day, Ms. Glickman, 61, of Greenfield, and Dr. Charny, 90, of Squirrel Hill, prayer shawls draped over their bodies, hid amid boxes and large black bags of clothing in a third-floor room as the gunman stalked the synagogue. They had fled there from a prayer service after they heard gunfire and Dr. Charny spotted the gunman, rifle pointed. When the sound of gunfire abated for a time, they ran from their hiding place out a side exit where officers hustled them into a police vehicle where they waited until the gunman was in custody. 

They have felt traumatic stress from their experiences, but they feel they are headed in the right direction for healing.

“I take the gift of life to mean I’m supposed to do something positive going forward. There’s a reason I’m still alive, that I have to do things for the betterment of the earth,”Ms. Glickman said. “I’m determined not to lose my sense of humor or to lose my sense of living. That would be that monster taking more away.”

Nine days after the massacre, she returned to her job as the rabbi’s assistant at Congregation Beth Shalom in Squirrel Hill.

Dr. Charny, a retired psychiatrist, shares a similar view with his good friend.

“It was a horrible day, but it was one day in my life,” Dr. Charny said. “You can’t let that one day keep its grip on you forever. I’ve often read the phrase, ‘We are born, we suffer and we die.’ The whole story in eight words. My response to that is ‘We are born, we laugh and we die.’”

Both said the myriad public vigils supported them when they most needed it.

“That was the perfect way to start us on the road to recovery,” Dr. Charny said.

Ms. Glickman said she doesn’t know what to say to the relatives of those killed or to those who are suffering survivor’s guilt because they were late for Shabbat services, common for such a lengthy service.

“No one has the words; there are no words,” she said.

Now when she leads prayers, she places a photograph of David Rosenthal, who was killed, next to her.

“It seems so empty without him standing beside me. He always was sitting beside me in the pew,” Ms. Glickman said.

Dr. Charny’s 91st birthday is on New Year’s Eve “and the whole world’s going to celebrate,” he said.

And then added, “Especially this year.” 

The Jewish star of strength

During the Middle Ages and later in Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe, Jews were forced to wear a yellow Star of David as a badge of shame.

Rabbi Shira Stern of New Jersey, crisis rabbi for the American Red Cross, thought of this when she spotted a billboard in Shadyside displaying the “Stronger Than Hate” image — the re-creation of the old U.S. Steel logo (now most associated with the Pittsburgh Steelers) in which a Star of David replaces the traditional yellow symbol at the top. 

“When I saw that Jewish star transformed from shame into resistance to hate, that to me was absolutely miraculous,” Rabbi Stern told about 15 people at Temple Sinai in Squirrel Hill during a session about the healing process. “The Jewish star is now a sign of support from the community.

Rabbi Stern, a pastoral counselor and Disaster Spiritual Care provider for the Red Cross, had come to Pittsburgh to provide counseling and support. Her friend, Rabbi James A. Gibson, senior rabbi at Temple Sinai, had asked her to join his weekly “shiur,” or class.

“You don’t have to have be a survivor of the actual shooting to be traumatized by this,” Rabbi Stern assured the group. “The first part of healing is realizing you are hurt.”

In a telephone interview the preceding day, she noted that in Pittsburgh “everybody knows somebody who knows somebody who lost someone.

“There are so many people with intertwined memories and personal experiences regarding Squirrel Hill or the congregations at Tree of Life that it’s like one huge family. The family is going to have to take time to heal.”

Back to normal?

Wendy Levin-Shaw was having dinner with friends recently. Inevitably, the subject of the massacre came up.

“It felt a little funny, but on the other hand we all wanted to talk about it, we all needed to talk about it, we all wanted to connect. I think you go back and forth like that,” said Ms. Levin-Shaw, a licensed clinical social worker for JFCS.

In the days following the shooting, she was among a legion of mental health professionals who provided grief counseling at the JCC to those in need — families of the fallen, survivors, first responders, members of the three affected congregations, and community members with no direct connection.

“There were all kinds of responses, but what everyone really felt was a need to connect,” she said. “People wondered later on, ‘Is it OK to do fun things, happy things?’ People were feeling guilt at that.”

How do you return to the normal rhythms of your life when the horror of Oct. 27 so shattered them?

“I certainly walk around with it somewhere in my heart, but life’s normal,” Ms. Levin-Shaw said. “There is a time when you go back and start making the kind of choices you made before.”

Her counsel is “to talk to close friends and family. These responses are normal, these reactions are normal and it takes time. So maybe make choices a little at a time to resume some of the routines you’ve given up. I think you’ll find as time goes on it becomes easier to have interaction with others and being able to still discuss it.”

But the day is now part of our individual and collective life stories.

“I heard someone say there’s now a before and an after. That’s sad, isn't it? It’s such a part of our life experience. It’s a marker, really. It stands out,” she said.

Beauty amid the ugliness

Mr. Golin, the head of JFCS, said the healing power of community support has greatly helped those suffering.

“I’ve used the word kindness [in the past month] more than I’ve used it in my entire life,” he said. “People went out of their way to support one another, to be considerate of one another. That is the key to us coming out of this horrible situation intact — being kind, providing support, figuring out how to build on each other’s strengths to get us through this.”

He said he is incredibly proud of the support from the community, government and public safety officials, sports teams and private citizens.

“There has been a lot of beauty coming out of this very ugly act,” Mr. Golin noted.

“I’ve heard from Charleston, S.C., from professionals from other communities that have come through horrible mass shootings like this, but it takes a lot of work, a lot of effort, a lot of time.…There’s so much goodwill here I think we will come out of this very well.

“We are absolutely going to get through this.”

Michael A. Fuoco: mfuoco@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1968. Twitter: @michaelafuoco

 

First Published: November 26, 2018, 11:00 a.m.

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Dory Levine, of Squirrel Hill, a board member at Tree of Life, pauses for a moment on Nov. 14 as she helps to deconstruct and catalogue the memorials left for those killed in October at the synagogue in Squirrel Hill.  (Andrew Rush/Post-Gazette)
Audrey Glickman, a survivor from Tree of Life synagogue, reflected recently on the October shooting. “I take the gift of life to mean I’m supposed to do something positive going forward. There’s a reason I’m still alive, that I have to do things for the betterment of the earth. I’m determined not to lose my sense of humor or to lose my sense of living. That would be that monster taking more away.”  (Andrew Rush/Post-Gazette)
Joe Charny, 90, a survivor from Tree of Life shooting, sits in his apartment recently in Squirrel Hill. He reflected on the mass shooting in October. “It was a horrible day, but it was one day in my life. You can’t let that one day keep its grip on you forever. I’ve often read the phrase, ‘We are born, we suffer and we die.’ The whole story in eight words. My response to that is ‘We are born, we laugh and we die.’”  (Andrew Rush/Post-Gazette)
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